Rev. Sue’s sermon lifts up the idea of families as systems, and how they shape our relationships, including those within the church. She’ll share a few stories of how Family Systems Theory has informed her own life and ministry, and discuss the implications for congregational life here at First Unitarian. (Please note: This will be … Continue reading “Knowing Our Families, Knowing Our Church”
For this multigenerational service, we remember some of the women who have shaped our Unitarian Universalist faith. These include Julia Ward Howe, who first envisioned Mothers’ Day as a day of peace, and the Rev. Maja Capek, a Czech Unitarian minister, and co-creator of the Flower Ceremony (sometimes known as Flower Communion) with her husband … Continue reading Roots of our Faith: Mothers’ Day and the Flower Festival
You might call this my “icebreaker sermon.” Looking back on my life, I realize that much of it has been experimental. One of those experiments involved leaving UU ministry for two years, and going to live in a women’s monastic community. Why did I do this, what did I learn – and what led me … Continue reading “What I Learned from the Sisters”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. From two different cultures come two different concepts of mysterious powers. From Spain, especially from the writings of Federico Garcia Lorca, comes the idea of duende, a powerful force of passion and vulnerability, that seems to rise from the Earth itself and that is utterly dependent on an awareness … Continue reading “Duende and Puhpowee: On Answering Your Calling”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. St. Teresa of Avila was a Carmelite nun and mystic. Her writings are considered to be classics of the contemplative tradition. In “The Interior Castle,” she writes about two forms of inspiration or transcendence. One is like a basin that is filled from an outside source: this basin represents … Continue reading “Water from the Source: On Mysticism”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. Gnosticism was an ancient heresy in the early Christian church. Among its primary tenets was the idea that secret knowledge could unlock the “divine spark” within human beings. As a movement, Gnosticism was obliterated by the official Church, yet threads of Gnostic thought persist even now. What insights might … Continue reading “Well, Whaddya Know: On Gnosticism”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. Jewish scripture tells of the time when Moses first received the Ten Commandments but shattered the tablets upon which they were written when he saw his people worshipping an idol. Those broken pieces were placed in the Ark, along with the second set of (unbroken) tablets. But why? What … Continue reading “Holy, Broken Pieces”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. UUs are often drawn to the world of ideas but some of us find we cannot get out of our heads. This service explores what it means to think too much and how we can live more fully engaged with other dimensions of our being. Lay leaders: Lori Jervis … Continue reading “On Overthinking”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. As people of a liberal and liberating faith, we need not choose between spiritual and social liberation. In fact, rising from our core theology, the two are inextricably linked. We go back to our Unitarian and Universalist history, and remember why we are called to work for the liberation of all, not … Continue reading “Tongues of Fire: On Spirit and Social Justice and Why It’s Not Either/Or”
Direct link to YouTube stream HERE. “If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” — Albert Einstein Many of us feel closest to the divine or to Mystery when we are in the … Continue reading “You Want a Physicist to Speak at Your Funeral: On Religious Naturalism”
